


Hell Awaits

by PaxVobis



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: ! - Freeform, 80's Music, Backstory, California, Epiphanies, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Goth Magnus, Goths, Kidklok, Music Store, Musical References, One Shot, Preklok, Revelations, Short & Sweet, Teen Years, The Dethzine, teen Magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 18:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxVobis/pseuds/PaxVobis
Summary: On Mikey’s second day working at Spinner’s Records, Dave looked out the window, through the record sleeves dangling on their fish wire in a makeshift display, and muttered, “Uh oh, here he comes.”Dave had settled back on the stool behind the counter, checking his watch.  “He’s right on time too – eugh.  This goth kid, he comes by after school on Thursdays, I’m pretty sure, never buys shit but always gets his sticky fingers on everything – he’s a real...” Dave snorted, finally looking up at Mikey and gesturing with a clawed hand in the air, as if he was strangling the poor kid.  “You know those goths who just can’t switch it off?  I mean, he’s just... so... he’s got a vibe, dude.”Mikey raised his eyebrows at Dave but gave a little nod of understanding.  Dave had grabbed a music magazine off the counter, glancing anxiously at the store’s door.  “He’s gonna grow up to be a real f--k, I can just feel it.  Shit.”Short fic for the Dethzine.





	Hell Awaits

On Mikey’s second day working at Spinner’s Records, Dave looked out the window, through the record sleeves dangling on their fish wire in a makeshift display, and muttered, “Uh oh, here he comes.”

Mikey only looked up from the records he was labelling, seeing Dave pull away from the window with a cringing frown.  No explanation appeared to be forthcoming so Mickey pushed his long hair back from his face and said, “Who?”, hoping to get in before they had to deal with trouble.  The record store had a lot of weird patrons and Dave was not a particularly welcoming soul, but it took something else to evoke so much dread just from approach.

Dave had settled back on the stool behind the counter, checking his watch.  “He’s right on time too – eugh.  This goth kid, he comes by after school on Thursdays, I’m pretty sure, never buys shit but _always_ gets his sticky fingers on everything – he’s a real...” Dave snorted, finally looking up at Mikey and gesturing with a clawed hand in the air, as if he was strangling the poor kid.  “You know those goths who just _can’t_ switch it off?  I mean, he’s just... _so..._ he’s got a vibe, dude.”

Mikey raised his eyebrows at Dave but gave a little nod of understanding.  Dave had grabbed a music magazine off the counter, glancing anxiously at the store’s door.  “He’s gonna grow up to be a real f--k, I can just feel it.  Shit.”

The door was pushed open abruptly, striking the little bell over it with such force that it barely tinkled, the clapper hitting its side with an ugly _clunk_ and then giving a hurt chime as the door returned to its place.  In the doorway stood the tallest highschooler Mike had ever seen, due in no small way to the massive boots adding a good three inches to his already solid height.  ‘The goth kid’ was a black pillar of neuroticism and puberty, his gangly body draped with a long black coat and shredded black jeans, a gigantic 45 Grave shirt that fit vertically but fell cavernously around his scrawny sides.  On his hand clutched around the door handle as he pushed it closed, his nails were long and clawlike, painted with shiny black – his wild dark eyes, already bugged and ringed, were outlined with heavy kohl that had run in the Fresno heat. 

Mike privately noted his eyebrows had run as well, his straightened but thick dark hair sticking to the sweat on his forehead, and what jewellery he wore – dangling around his neck and off his wrists and fingers, big ornate crosses and beads – appeared to belong to an old European woman and not a usual Fresno goth.  Probably his mother.  It must have been hard work being a goth in California, thought Mike, and he watched under his brow as the goth kid crossed the shop with noisy clomps and a foul mood that hung over him like a storm cloud.  Straight to the punk section, which was where Dave put the goth records – there and the new wave section, as Dave steadfastly refused to cater to this kid’s ilk on principle. 

Dave, for his part, was pretending to read the magazine with great interest.  No one else was in the shop.  Well, thought Mike as he watched the kid leaf through the records, think of him as a challenge.  The kid’s family had money, he had jewellery, he went to local shows by the shirt – and he was passionate.  He had to be a sale waiting to happen.  The Doors were on the store record player but Mike slowly moved over to it, putting aside the records that had been in his arms on another stack in the cramped shop.  Now Mike knew little about the goths, and even less about the wave – Mike had been hired off the back of his knowledge of one thing and one thing only, and that was heavy metal.

He took the gothest metal album he could think of and loaded it to the gothest track, ‘Postmortem’.  Dave glared at him over the magazine but said nothing, watching for his next move with mild entertainment.  Mike ignored him and approached the goth carefully as the kid aggressively turned through the albums.  “Hey, dude, how’s it going?” he asked in the nicest manner he could, and the goth whipped to him in a clatter of necklaces.

“ _The new Ministry album?_ ” he snapped in a squeaky teenage squeal, and Mike leaned back from him in alarm.  When he couldn’t summon up the words, the kid snapped in his face with a jangle of bracelets and repeated, “The new Ministry album??  _Twitch_??  Do you have it?”

Mike leaned his hand against a shelf of records awkwardly.  “Uh,” he said and swallowed, “No, dude, I, uh, don’t think we have any Ministry.”

“Pathetic,” hissed the goth and turned back to the punk section, flicking with more violence than before.  After a beat where Mike was about to ask if there was anything else, the kid cut him off with a snarl: “You’re new here, yeah?”

“Uh, yeah, I – ” said Mike, but the goth talked straight over him again.

“Tell f--king _Dave_ to get some f--cking real-ass music then.  I’ve been coming here for years and he never has shit, he’s the only record store in the whole neighborhood and he’s _pathetic_.  Pentatonix only has blues and roots, y’know, shit.  I can’t just _go_ to LA all the time.” The goth sniffed. “Mom would kill me.”

Mikey paused to take this in, and then smiled gently at the goth and extended his hand. “Mike.  I’ll order some Ministry for you, dude.” 

The goth looked up at him in surprise, stunned still for a moment, and then took Mike’s hand in a sweaty, weak-wristed claw and shook it.  “Magnus,” he squeaked as his hand fell away, and that was definitely not his real name.  Mike heard Dave’s muttered, _goths, man_ from behind the magazine, and Magnus glared up at the shopkeeper.

“It’s _deathrock_ ,” he snapped, and was more than ready to loudly explain the difference when the thrash record went quiet.  This point in the album was a sample, the sound of heavy rain falling, thunder, the fading wails of a guitar, the echoing cracks of drums.  The goth fell totally silent, looking up for the speakers mounted at the top of the shop, and Mike felt strangely afraid for a moment – concerned at what would happen next – before the first riffs of ‘Raining Blood’ rang out through the dusty shop and he realized he was seeing something else.

Magnus was hypnotised – stock still like a predatory cat, his head tilted up, listening enraptured.  Too long passed, and Mike cleared his throat awkwardly, aware of Dave watching them across the store.  “What is this?” asked the goth suddenly, fixing Mike with a quizzical look as his long bang fell across his acne-spotted face, and Mike jumped to hold up the record cover.

“Uh!  It’s Slayer, dude – _Reign in Blood_ – just out on Def Jam last week, dude, it’s – I mean – it’s Slayer.  What more can ya say?” he said, and Magnus peered at the hellscape on the album’s cover curiously, taking it from his hands with tentative black clawed fingers.  Because what more _could_ you say? 

Magnus tilted his head again to listen to the riff reprise, as if he was tasting something so sweet, so perfect, for the very first time.  He turned the sleeve over in his fingers, reading the tracks thoughtfully, and then asked: “How much is this?”

Mike smiled so wide the top of his head could have fallen right off and bounced over the dusty carpet on his long metalhead curls.  He quoted Magnus the price minus ten percent, the supplier’s price, and Dave glared holes through him across the store, but Magnus held the record close to his chest, gave Mikey a strange, vulnerable look, and then the weakest, rarest smile he’d ever seen.

“Thank you,” said the kid softly, a genuine gratitude in his eyes, still listening to the record on the store speakers.  “I never heard... anything like this before.”

And so it was.

**Author's Note:**

> First published in the Dethzine, June 2018. [Get your copy, PDF or physical, here for more art and fic, with proceeds going to the charity Direct Relief.](https://thedethzine.tumblr.com/Quick%20links)


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